


Velocity

by enemyfrigate



Series: Echo and Ricochet [2]
Category: Justified
Genre: Assassination, Assassins & Hitmen, Crimes & Criminals, Depression, Exes, Istanbul, Libraries, M/M, Murder, POV Alternating, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Relationship(s), Reunions, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:04:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3923947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemyfrigate/pseuds/enemyfrigate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raylan and Tim both feel the aftereffects of events in Nicaragua.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Velocity

**Author's Note:**

> So, today is my birthday, and in the tradition of the Hobbit folk, I present a gift to my friends: this story.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Trigger warnings:  
> \- brief mentions of past child abuse  
> \- murder for hire  
> \- mention of depressive symptoms

Raylan confesses his Nicaraguan misadventures to Dan over a bottle of George Dickel bourbon at one in the morning, a few nights after he steps off the plane on his long-way-round retreat from Nicaragua.

“Jesus Christ, Raylan, you fucked a hitman?” Dan sounds weary.

“I didn’t know that at the time, Dan.” Raylan pokes at the leftover chicken wings, congealing in artificially red sauce in a Styrofoam container between them on Dan’s kitchen table.

Somehow, they’d seemed like a good idea, but he’s had no appetite for days. Sauce and grease make a slick in the bottom of the box. He swallows against rising nausea. Abruptly, he flips the lid closed, grabs the container and dumps the whole thing in the trash. “For all I know, he’s working for our people.”

“I doubt the CIA gives a fuck about organized crime,” Dan says. “Not drug runners, anyway. The Russian Mafia, maybe.”

Raylan shrugs. He’s beyond caring about Tim’s motivations.

But Dan won’t let it go. He reaches for the Dickel, splashes some more out into his glass. “So some ex-military guy hanging around Nicaragua with no apparent job seemed like what, a vacationing shoe salesman?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on seeing him ever again, so I figured it didn’t matter,” Raylan says, temper bucking up.

Dan regards him. Wheels are turning in his brain, Raylan knows that look.

Then Dan says, “Look, you’re okay, and that’s what’s important. We get Roland Pike, we don’t get Roland Pike, doesn’t really matter. Whoever your mystery guy is, who gives a fuck. What I need to know is, do you need anything?”

“Like what?” Raylan’s still kind of pissed.

“How’s your head, Ray? You feel like you can go out and chase down fugitives, or do you need some time?”

Raylan’s suddenly thirsty; he gets a glass out of the cabinet and runs tap water into it, drinks it down even as it spills on his shirt.

“Ray?”

“I just want to get back to normal,” Raylan says.

Dan nods. Doesn’t make the obvious joke. Raises his glass. “To being normal.”

Raylan taps his water glass against Dan’s bourbon. Drinks to normal.

But he’s not holding his breath.

  

 

Tim and Mark split up and leave Managua separately, Mark by bus, Tim by road. There are a lot of loose ends to wrap up, chiefly the poor bastard Bucks was torturing. Mark got the farmer to a hospital, while Tim dealt with Bucks’ body, and then his van, which Raylan had left parked around the back of the hotel.

Then there were hotel rooms to clean - prints, receipts, anything personal - and normal identities to assume.

By this time in their partnership, Tim and Mark don’t need more than a few words to operate together, so the Raylan thing doesn’t come up.

Mark waits to tell Tim off until he gets off a bus in a medium sized town in southern Mexico, and joins Tim where he’s waiting around the corner from the bus station in an old car.

“What the fuck was that? You fucked the bait?” Mark barely slams the creaky door of the battered sedan before firing both barrels.

Tim shoves a hand back through his hair. Thinking about Raylan has been one of the things he’s been trying not to do.

“I just wanted some company,” Tim says, shoving the key in and turning it. “It’s been a really long time.”

A long time since Nick.

He gets back on the road, winding through town to the main highway northeast, as Mark shoves his rucksack over into the back seat, and pulls a couple cold beers from a plastic sack. He cracks the caps with his Leatherman and hands one to Tim.

Tim takes it, grateful for the gesture. Rolls the cold glass over his forehead as he slows to a stop at the corner, then takes the turn.

“You want me to drive?” Mark pulls out a bag of chips.

“I’ve got a groove,” Tim says. “Maybe in a few hours.”

Damn, he’s tired. People think that being a shooter for hire is glamorous, but the truth is, Tim just spent two and a half days driving up here from Managua in a cheap ass, no questions asked, vehicle, bought under an alias. And that cheap ass car had nothing much in the way of shocks, and the radio didn’t work if the AC was on, and it’s summer in Central America, so the AC is always on.

Wait, hang on, Mexico is in North America.

Anyway, it’s summer, and it’s hot.

They have another eight-nine hours of driving before he can relax. May as well let Mark chew him a new one now. “Go ahead. I know you want to.”

“You can have all the fucking company you want,” Mark says. “I will stand at the door and keep watch so you and your company can have all the quality time in the world. But you can’t get close to the bait like that. You could have blown the op.”

“I’ve never blown an op in my life, not from the day I signed on the dotted line,” Tim says, sharp and cutting.

Mark’s mouth goes flat and mulish, but he can't argue that. So he takes a different tack. “What if Bucks had been carving on the Marshal when we got there? You take that without breaking?”

“I can always shoot, you know that. I ain’t going to let you down, Marko. And he wasn’t bait,” Tim grips the wheel tight. “He was a stalking horse.”

In a minute, Tim’s going to start thinking, and he’s going to get the shakes.

“You can’t do that again. Get personal with a guy who’s part of the op,” Mark says. Firm. When Mark uses that tone, he’s serious.

Tim doesn’t answer right away. Not likely to come up again, but Tim has a very firm policy of never letting some straight tell him how to be queer. But he _is_ a professional. So he nods. “Agreed.”

“I know it’s been hard for you since Nick fucked off,” Mark says. “He’s an asshole.”

Tim rolls his shoulders in a shrug. He does not want to talk about Nick.

Fucking Nick. On his beach in Belize. Nothing was ever easy with Nick, but Tim had loved him. Gotten fucked over anyway.

When Tim is being honest with himself, he can see a pattern, him pushing for something more than his boyfriend wants, believing in forever a little too easy, no matter how tough things are with a guy. Still getting kicked in the nuts in the end.

Maybe he’d just liked having someone to come home to too much, so he refused to see how things weren’t working. (DADT didn’t help, either.)

Nobody who knows just the outside of him would agree, but Tim’s a romantic,

But he’s also not stupid.

The next time, the next guy, that’s going to be easy, or he’s out.

He settles into the drive, reaches for a handful of chips, keeps the beer bottle between his thighs in between sips.

Soon there’d be new clients, new ops to plan, new targets.

Next stop, Mexico City.

 

 

Monday morning Raylan walks into the bustling Miami Marshals office, cowboy hat and boots firmly in place.

Dan leans out of his office door. “Raylan, get in here.”

Raylan drops his hat on his desk, hits the power key on his computer, and detours to the coffee pot. He pours a cup and swings around Nguyen’s desk, catty corner to his.

She holds up a hand to beckon him, but Raylan shakes his head. “Sorry. Boss man calls.”

Dan says, “Shut the door behind you.”

“What’s up?” The door clicks and Raylan drops into a chair in front of Dan’s desk.

“What’s up? This, from a man who almost got tortured in a jungle a few days ago?”

“It was an orchard. Or plantation. Not clear on the exact terminology.”

“Almost got tortured, and probably killed, except he was rescued by his boyfriend, the hitman.”

“Also, not my boyfriend.”

“Raylan. You fucked a hitman.”

“To be fair, Dan, I have no idea what Tim’s job description is.” Shit. Maybe shouldn’t have dropped Tim’s name in there. But what can Dan do with just ‘Tim’?

“I’d love to sit here and dialogue with you about the finer points of the English language, Raylan, but we work for the U. S. Marshals Service, which requires a certain amount of paperwork from us.”

Raylan’s stomach drops. “Shit.”

“I want a draft by the end of the day.”

“Just the facts, I got it.”

“Shit, are you insane? The facts are the _problem_.”

“I get it, Dan. I’ve been through this rodeo before.”

“I don’t think you do. You go down there looking for Pike, fine. You talk to some locals, fine. You fuck a guy who later _kills_ the asshole who kidnapped you? You never report the death _or_ the snatch?” Dan fixes him in place with his stare.

“Sounds a lot worse when you say it like that.” Raylan shifts in his chair.

“Get it down like this. Shooter doesn’t show up until the plantation. No idea who he is. You were in shock. You got away as best you could. So you didn’t check in with the national police or anything like it, just got the first plane out.” Dan leans back in his chair. “You did not fuck anyone. No extra curricular activities whatsoever.”

Raylan runs his hand back through his hair. “I’m going to go back to my desk and get started on that.”

“End of the day, Raylan. Draft right here.” Dan taps the wood of his desk.

Raylan does his damnedest with the report, pounds out the broad facts that these documents call for, going over and over to fill in as much detail as he can. Rereading it, all he can see are the holes.

His heart kicks up. He can taste humid air, copper in his throat. The old oil and moldy carpet reek of Bucks’ van. The hum of wheels magnified through the van chassis. The brush of Tim’s breath against his cheek, as his voice comes out of the dark night.

Pushes the memories away, gets the draft done.

Dan is out, so Raylan just drops the print-out on his desk, retrieves his hat, and gets out of the office before he falls apart, walking briskly like he has somewhere to be so none of his fellow Marshals talk to him.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse, noon sunlight and heat crash over him. Has no idea where he’s going. He’s not hungry even, though it’s lunchtime. Doesn’t even want a drink.

This is Miami, he could do almost anything. Find someone, man, woman, either or both, to bed. Somebody’ll be holding up a bar somewhere in town, open to a fuck.

But Raylan doesn’t want company. Not some random body, not even his mysterious Tim. He just wants to lick his wounds in peace. Find a safe space to den up.

The scent of frying oil drifts over him, from a street vendor, And Raylan’s stomach rroils, saliva flooding his mouth as he swallows against the nausea. Memories of Arlo yelling, his mother crying, rise from his hindbrain, mix with the scent of old books, the crinkle of plastic, the light streaming in through high windows, in the Harlan Public Library of his youth.

Raylan buys a Coke from a cafe half a block down, goes back to the courthouse parking garage, gets in his SUV and taps at the navigation system, looking for the nearest library.

The Miami Public Library building is way more modern, but it feels the same as HPL. The building is a little quiet, the books absorbing sound, and the stern glances of the librarians no doubt keeping the noise low. Smells of paper, old volumes slowly succumbing to paper mold welcome him, and though the computers ranked to the left of the door and the shelves of CDs and DVDs beyond bring it firmly into the present, Raylan’s shoulders relax down as tension flees, the way it always was for him as a boy.

For a few years, between being old enough to run around on his own to when he discovered girls, Raylan had nearly lived at the Harlan library. The library had been a world away from unpredictable Arlo, from never knowing if he would be greeted with a blow or a grin. From his mother’s bruises, her absences up at Noble’s Holler. The shame and relief of Arlo in jail once again.

Funny thing is, Raylan doesn’t even have a library card anymore; he buys the books he wants, keep ‘em on the shelf.

Raylan pokes through the magazine section, finds a chair in an out of the way corner.

Dan texts him just as Raylan is getting into a pile of _Popular Science_ back issues: _Get back here. Report needs work._

It’s a long fucking afternoon. Raylan is only tempted to shoot Dan five or six times, as between them, they hash the thing out.

Dan,usually so sharp and sarcastic and blunt, doesn’t tell him off. Instead, he’s just treating Raylan’s fuck-up as a paperwork problem.

This is one of his jobs, to keep the deputy marshals under him smelling sweet to the brass, to the public, but Raylan wishes he would show some emotion. Dan’s giving him nothing to push back against, and it’s hard to hold the line against the too solid ghosts of terror, and shame, and harsh relief without something to take their place..

Raylan had been able to push all that shit a few steps back, in the last 24 hours, but as they massage the report into an acceptable narrative, it’s rushing back, strong and undeniable.

When the report is done, when Raylan has read it through one final time and affixed his signature, Dan speaks up.

“Ray. This was a massive fuck up. Do not do it again.”

Raylan’s eyes narrow. “Ain’t planning to.”

Dan sighs. “Go on, get out of here. You’re taking morning prisoner transport with Nguyen this week. 6 a.m. sharp.”

Mild, as punishments go. Raylan suppresses the impulse to ask what Nguyen did to deserve it, besides being his usual partner, and just makes his escape. Hopes she won’t be too pissed at him. Expects he’ll be buying her lunch all week.

“Okay,” is all Raylan says, and gets out of there. He drives straight home, buries himself in his condo, with bourbon and take out he barely touches, his tongue and palate full with the memory of Bucks’ gag.

 

 

The next day, Mexico City, and a cheap furnished apartment that rents by the month.

Before they take possession, Mark and Tim stop at a small grocery store, where they buy cold beer and bread and chips and sandwich stuff. Bottled water, too.

Most of the drive up had been quiet. Tim’s spent so much time in transit with Mark over the years that stretches of silence are the norm. When they’d reached the city last night, a cheap motel off the highway had taken their money, and Tim had gone into one room, and Mark into the one next door, without comment beyond quiet _good night_ s.

Tim had needed to decompress, too, and Mark probably needed the same thing. Turning your brain off and letting the car eat up the miles works pretty well.

Now they’ve got this place where no one will look for them, giving them time to regroup and work on the next job.

Once they get inside the place, and check out the exits, lower the shades, Mark puts the food and beer away and Tim goes back out and makes a meandering circuit of the shitty apartment complex.

Mostly, the renters here are students, or people living paycheck to paycheck. Someone new won’t excite comment.

Tim makes note of the little things, where outdoor lights shine, and where they don’t, an easily climbed piece of crumbling fence, routes in and out of the parking lot, enough to make a quick diagram for Mark when he gets inside.

First things first, though. When he gets inside, Tim fetches a cold beer out of the fridge.

Mark nods when Tim sketches the place out, on a sheet of notebook paper. It accords with the satellite shots they’d both looked at when they’d looking into renting a place for after Nicaragua, with the small details added.

Then Tim soaks the sheet of paper, rips it up, and flushes it.

Sandwiches happen, and they watch _Finding Nemo_ on Mark’s laptop. An attempt at normal.

When the movie ends, Tim drains the rest of his beer, and makes a mental note to get some bourbon or other liquor. Tomorrow, though. He pushes to his feet. “I’m going to get washed up.”

“You take the bed,” Mark says. “I got the couch.”

“It’s your turn,” Tim says. Stubborn.

“Take the damn bed, Gutterson. You look like shit.”

Tim starts to argue, thinks better of it, gives Mark a two finger salute, and heads down the hall. First, Tim sluices off in the shower, washes all the road dust off him with lukewarm water. Thinks fondly of the last time he was in Mexico City, a couple years ago, and the huge shower and amazing pool at the luxury hotel he’d stayed in.

They make enough money that they could travel under well-off cover IDs whenever they want, but Tim feels uncomfortable playing at that kind of persona. He’d rather post as an ordinary person.

Since Managua, Tim’s been traveling as a wannabe photo-journalist, with an expensive amateur camera, who talks a big game. Guys like that bunk down in motels, or crash with buddies. Guys like that stick out at a four star place.

Considering all the times Tim and Mark and their fellow Rangers slept under the stars, winter and summer, or trained in swamps, or lay in wait on mountainsides in a war zone, a basic motel room is plenty.

Tim pulls on boxer shorts, sets his Beretta on the nightstand where he can reach it, and lets himself down on the bed. He can’t get comfortable. Five minutes later, Tim turns on his side, and scrunches up, protecting his vitals instinctively.

That’s better. Sleep can happen now, and he feels himself getting heavier. Free associates about the last few days, little things, a brindled dog on a porch, two girls at a cafe with blue and green hair, a thunderstorm they drove through, and the scent of ozone. Gradually, insignificant snatches of of experience give way to deeper buried memories.

Tonight's behind-the-eyes midnight movie becomes a scroll of faces, this time targets under his rifle, mixed with soldiers he’d fought beside, right before the bullet struck.

Silent. Waiting. Condemning.

Tim twitches awake, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Fucking damn it. He’s sinking again.

 

 

Two weeks after Nicaragua, a Thursday, Raylan wakes up from another dream, which leaves traces of terror and arousal, lingering thoughts of blue eyes and camouflage.

And a hangover on top of that. He fumbles a bottle of Aleve open, washes it down from the mug of stale water at his bedside. Determines to ignore it, something he’s getting better at lately. He’s had a lot of practice.

He levers out of bed, doesn’t allow himself to hesitate.

Time to white knuckle through another day.

He gets ready for work the same way as always. Get up, piss, coffee, breakfast, newspaper, brush teeth, get dressed.

Raylan is convinced that if he just acts right, his head will get right.

He puts on his last clean shirt, jeans he’s only worn twice this week. He slips on his brown suit jacket, and frowns. He rolls his shoulders to settle the fabric. Goes into the bathroom and peers at himself in the over-sink mirror. The jacket doesn’t look loose, but feels it.

Raylan vows to eat a vegetable today. Some protein. One of those salads with a ton of grilled chicken and shrimp. Vitamins all over the place.

His stomach turns, though that could be the bourbon from last night. He’s down to Wild Turkey. Not the worst, he has some pride, but no point in spending green on the good stuff when he’s just numbing his brain with it.

Fuck. Time to get to work. Dan’s been watching him with real sharp eyes since he got back, and Raylan is trying to avoid another Talk. The long, booze fueled night he’d spent bringing Dan up to speed after his return had been bad enough, with the afternoon they’d spent hashing out his official report - just the facts, and ones that make him and the USM look good - had been only slightly less horrible.

This particular workday, as it turns out, does not go too well.

Raylan prefers a lot less actual chasing on his fugitive hunts. Running down alleyways in 90 degree heat, in cowboy boots, is never fun. The hangover adds another layer of hell. By the time he and Nguyen catch the woman, Nguyen tackling her to the ground, Raylan has sweated through his shirt, his mouth is bone dry, and the clanging in his head is reaching emergency proportions.

Not his finest hour.

After booking their fugitive, and springing for a late lunch for Nguyen as an apology for being useless in the take down, Raylan heads out, figures on taking a little undertime. Otherwise, he’s feeling so shitty he might shoot someone just to relieve his feelings.

At least the Miami office has a secure parking garage, video and actual security guards so he doesn’t have to be as careful approaching his SUV. Getting out to his car still has him nerved up, the sightlines are crappy and sound in all the concrete is deceptive.

Before he can leave, Dan catches up to him. “We need to talk, Ray.”

“We talked when I got back, we talked a few weeks ago. I’m tired of talking.” Raylan stands there with a hand on the open door of the SUV.

“Too bad. When was the last time you ate a real meal? Come on. Let’s get some food.” Dan has Raylan drive to a takes Raylan to a steakhouse a few miles west.

Raylan hesitates, then goes ahead and orders the damn sirloin salad. He needs the vitamins.

"Talked to Nguyen. She said you reeked - her words - of bourbon this morning." Dan sips at iced tea. "She gives you credit for a 'game effort' chasing down Miller."

Nguyen is a failed, excuse me, _not yet successful_ , mystery novelist in her spare time. She means the exact words she says. Raylan likes her a lot, except when she rats him out to Dan. “I did my job.”

“Yeah, you did. Not very well.” Dan carves another slice off his steak.

Raylan takes up a forkful of meat and greens, chews. Thinks about walking out right then and there. But Dan’s not really busting his balls, and what would he do next, anyway? He sighs. “What do you want, Dan? I had an off day.”

The door opens, bright light stabbing into the dark restaurant. Raylan tracks the guy who just came in as he goes over to the hostess stand, watches her walk him to a booth in the front window. Probably not a threat.

If you ignore how he has to watch his back at all times, his tendency to both hit the roof and pull his gun at sudden noises, the taste of gunpowder in the back of his throat around the lush vegetation of most of tropical Miami, he’s totally fine. But he can’t admit that to Dan. Can’t give in to this thing. Says, without meeting Dan’s look, “I’m coping.”

“I know you like your bourbon, Ray,” Dan says. “I agree that it is your right as an American to get shitfaced on occasion. But you’ve never brought it into work like this.”

Dan’s his boss, but he’s also a pretty good friend. A little honesty can’t hurt too much. Raylan shoves his plate away. “I’m feeling it, a little. What happened in Nicaragua.”

“I think you need to see somebody.”

“A counselor isn’t going to get my head right in time for work Monday morning,” Raylan says.

“Fine. You have until Monday to get your head straight,” Dan says. “If you can convince me you’ve moved past this thing - and you’re not hungover - I’ll leave you alone.”

“Deal.” Raylan drains his Coke, wondering how he’s going to do that. But he’ll take the break, even if it means that Dan’s just giving him enough rope to hang himself with. “So the Marlins suck right now.”

Dan goes with the subject change. “That’s what happens when you name a sports team the Marlins.”

 

 

The day after they arrive in Mexico City, Mark goes out to the busiest tourist area, buys a prepaid cell phone, and activates it, while Tim gets on with doing laundry and taking some naps.

Tim calls this a good division of labor.

Mark comes back to the apartment with three different job offers, left on a nearly secret voicemail line.

The prepaid phone is in about five different trash cans, the sim card in three others, courtesy of Mark’s Leatherman multi-tool. Tim has one too, endlessly useful thing, especially for uncapping beer bottles.

Anyway, it’s not paranoid if people are actually out to get you.

Tim’s just back from the laundromat when Mark gets in from checking their business messages, and joins him on the couch. He lays out three Post-it notes, each with a few words scrawled.

“Got three offers. This guy traffics kids,” Mark says, pointing to the post it note with the basic details: country, name of target, client. The rest of the info they keep in their heads, to start. “But the guy who wants him done is worse. He’s a rival trafficker, bigger operation. Lives in Argentina.”

“Next?” Tim’s folding his clean laundry on the coffee table. The cut through Tim’s eyebrow, courtesy of a stone kicked up by a motorcycle this morning while he’d been taking a run, itches, faintly, around the three tight, neat stitches Mark had put in.

“Okay, this next guy, he stole from his boss. Upward of three million bucks American. Boss is Serbian, has some shady connects, probably runs some drugs through his legit company.” Mark shrugs. “Regular fee plus a percent of the stolen money, we get it done.”

Not a bad job, and Serbia is easier to work in than most European countries, but Tim frowns, not quite liking it. “And number three?”

Over the last couple years, they’ve worked out a system. If Tim doesn’t feel good about a job, forget it. He has an instinct.

Once Tim’s kicked out the bad jobs, they research the others, if they have multiple pending. Background client and target. Only then do they give a yes or no.

By now they’ve got their approach down solid. No rush jobs, for one. If they can’t take their own time to set up and complete the kill, they pass.

They rarely operate inside the U.S., maybe three-four times since leaving the military and partnering up three years ago. Not out of any patriotic spirit, but Mark has some family and Tim has some friends, and they don’t want to be looking over their shoulders for the FBI all the time when they’re home.

And yeah, maybe it’s a stupid distinction, for professional killers, but they both prefer to target people who need to be dealt with. Bad people.

Mark likes to say that they aren’t killers, but hunters.

It’s a distinction Tim likes.

Bucks was a contract, but Tim only agreed to take the job because Bucks was a cancer that needed to go.

“The third one is...I don’t know, Guts.” Mark blows out a breath and rakes a hand through his hair. “A friendly Afghani wants a Taliban warlord put down, when he visits Turkey. There’s some villages in eastern Turkey, guy feels pretty safe there. Does some recruiting, I bet.”

Mark looks down at the scraps of paper, rubs the back of his neck.

Tim stops folding. Controls his breathing. It’s too close to home, and he wants nothing to do with it, and at the same time, he still feels the old call.

Duty. Loyalty. Not so much to America, or the Army, but to his fellow soldiers. His comrades, who are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan.

The shitty air conditioner sputters, resumes its groan. The sheer loudness of the thing makes them both nervous, can;t hear people coming. But, as Mark had pointed out this morning, not having it on would look really suspicious.

Tim gets up and gets a beer. “Let’s background the last two. I don’t like the first one.”

Mark hesitates. “You sure, Guts? I can look at all three.”

“I’m not taking money made off slavery,” Tim says.

“You positive you want me to look into the third?” Mark crumples the first note.

Tim presses the cold beer to his forehead. “Sure. Why not?”

“I’ll get on it,” Mark says.

Tim reaches for a tee shirt that’s seen better days. Folds it perfect. Tough to operate in eastern Turkey. There’s a guy in Istanbul can get him a long gun, they can take their time working east, but they’ll stand out like crazy, especially down near the Iraq border. If they can get the target in transit, it would be better. Most likely, he’ll move around in a small plane, at least fly over the Iraq border, but once on the ground in Turkey, he’ll transit by road.

Hmmm.

There’re a few folks he can tap for intel over that way, guys who work for one of the alphabet agencies - CIA, NSA, and so on - but served in the regular military first, who won’t have much of a problem with a guy like that being taken out.

Thoughts to chew on.

Mark goes out to find some public wi-fi to start the profiles, while Tim goes out into the city and makes the rounds of contacts, gunrunners and shady operators and thugs. Talks a little shop here and there, with details concealed or omitted, buys a few things, keeps the shadowy mechanism of their professional lives flowing.

He heads back to the apartment in the late afternoon,having spent a grinding half hour flirting with a fixer they’d used before, not really his type, too pretty, a decent enough guy as far as criminals go. But Tim had hated every minute, wanted nothing to do with it. Instead, he’s thinking about a slight drawl, strong hands, and a stubbled jaw.

A good memory. A fucked up memory. His stomach clenches. Shit, he just doesn’t know.

Tim thinks about hitting a bar, but drink won’t help. He goes back to their hidey hole and tries to wash away the tension in sweat, with sit ups, and pushups and squats. Works for an hour, until he’s trembling. Drinks orange juice from the carton, but he’s only taking a break, he’s not done.

Follows up with some yoga, counts his breaths, goes as slow as he can. Distraction from distraction.

The door opens, shuts, and Mark calls out, “Tim?”

“In here,” Tim says.

“Got some good stuff,” Mark says, coming into the bedroom where Tim is making downward dog perfect.

Tim gets up, stretches, limbs loose and warm. A memory of a solid chest and calloused hands worms in, despite all that he’s done to banish that shit. He sighs and holds out his hand. “Notebook?”

As Tim flips through the pages of Mark’s neat, tiny printing, parsing Mark’s own personal shorthand, and the code they created between them his mood rises. This is what he was made for.

There’s nothing like that endless blink of a moment when he pulls the trigger - and the target falls.

But this is the first step.

“I was thinking, we got time, we could take the night off, hit some clubs,” Mark says. “Pick up some decent clothes, have some drinks, maybe get laid.”

Tim nods, buoyed by the slow electricity of the hunt. “This is good stuff, man. Fast work.”

Mark ducks his head. You couldn’t call Tim sparing with his praise, but he only says shit like that when he means it.

“Come on, let’s go out, get prettied up.” Tim shuts the notebook and stows it in the hidey hole Mark made behind the paneling in the kitchen, behind the fridge.

 

Not long before dawn, a cab drops them off a few blocks away from the apartment, and they stagger back to their temporary billet.

Mark had gotten laid, wandered off with a girl to some nook or cranny in the twists and turns of the old building, come back relaxed and dopey. Tim had had some looks - he cleans up pretty well - but he hadn’t taken anything further. So not in the mood. But it had been a good night.

Tim drops his suit jacket on the floor, works off the shoes, unbuckles his belt, flops on the bed. The champagne and bourbon has just taken all his tension away, and sleep looms close.

Then the midnight movie starts to run behind his eyes. Flick - target, flick-target, then Justin, smiling at him, right before the IED...but it’s an old hurt, so old he’s worn the edges smooth.

But the aftermath. What bothers him tonight is the memory of heat and smoke and taking cover behind the wreckage of the Humvee as his sergeant called for med evac. That was the first time he felt truly frightened in battle, and it hadn’t come until a month into his first tour. Until then, it had all seemed surreal, like a live fire training exercise.

Before he can get sucked down by his brain, Tim struggles off the soft bed, tries to be stealthy as he hits the kitchen for a bottle of water, but he’s too drunk to be quiet, bumps into some cabinets, trips a little over curling linoleum.

Mark, his face mashed into a sofa pillow, says something indistinct.

Tim mumbles back, “Shh, sleep.”

Now that he’s up, he might as well brush his teeth.

The flat shape of a postcard stops him cold, as he rummages in the duffel for the new toothbrush he has stowed in there.

Stupid, Gutterson. Should have sent it from Managua. He’d plucked it out of the rack, mentioned something offhand to the clerk about his nieces, they collect postcards, knowing all along that he was thinking of someone else.

Could still write a few words on it. Pass it through his remailer, no trace back to him.

Reach out to Raylan.

He puts the postcard, just an inexpert picture of the hotel, carefully inside the old hardback copy of _Fellowship of the Rings_ he’s been humping around since Basic, so it doesn’t get bent.

Tim’ll send it tomorrow.

Then he’ll get back to work.

 

 

Friday night, Raylan heads out to his favorite hunting grounds. Looking for a man, specifically a man who can erase Tim.

Raylan’s done his fair share of cruising in Miami, and he has his favorite spots. Some are cruisier than others, depending on what he’s looking for. Right now, he is not looking for a deep and meaningful connection. Just some sweaty fun.

Been too long since he’s just had some fun - the last time was with Tim - and fuck.

Better just head out. Thinking is not his friend right now.

He orders a beer at the first bar, surveys the crowd. Most of the men here are in their 30s; the younger guys won’t show up ‘til much later, and Raylan isn’t interested in being anyone’s Daddy. The guys here right now are much more his speed.

The air tastes like beer and a hint of aftershave, a hint of cigarette smoke from the smokers, allowed on the roof deck.

The crowd here doesn’t bother him, a sensation he’d about forgotten since getting home. He knows what these guys want, and it’s nothing he doesn’t want to give. In general, at any rate. He does have standards beyond just breathing, with a dick.

When his Sam Adams arrives, Raylan takes a healthy swig, tilts the bottle up, showing off the line of his throat, and as Raylan tips his head back, he makes eye contact with a few prospects.

Takes his time swallowing.

Balks.

He takes another fast swallow, too fast, this time has to cough to clear beer out of his throat.

He can’t. Can’t even think of picking some guy up. Letting an unknown get close, dropping his guard.

Raylan’s always been comfortable with sex, with bodies and their parts, dick and pussy and tits. Prides himself on being good at sex with strangers, at treating them well, making sure everyone gets theirs.

But now - he can't let anyone close. There’s no way he trust some random.

Safety. What does that feel like? His brain whispers, _you felt safe with Tim_.

Mother. Fucker.

Raylan pinches the bridge of his nose. Smacks the bottle down on the bar, three-quarters full, and heads for the door.

He regroups in the truck, mouth flattened and mulish. He’s not about to head home. He has to realize that Tim is gone. Can he forget him? No. Replace him? Maybe not. Make him less important? Has to.

So Raylan drives over to Miami’s one and only gay sports bar, the sort of place that favors a low key approach. It’s not really a pick up spot, with just as many couples and groups there to watch sports, eat food, drink beer, as single men looking for sex.

Men have actual conversations here. Sometimes they go home with a new friend, but they know each other’s names and how they feel about the Dolphins’ offensive line first.

Raylan gets a beer, takes the initiative and claims a bar stool near a guy named Kevin, chats him up. Kevin’s a few years younger, fit but not a gym bunny.

They disagree on the Marlins’ starting pitcher for the night, but in a friendly way, and agree on liking each other’s company. Their shoulder brush, sitting on side by side bar stools, as they watch the Marlins.

This is normal. Right here. Raylan sighs, but this time he’s getting rid of tension. Feels like he can do this.

But a few innings later, when Kevin leans in for a kiss, Raylan twitches back, instinctive. Catches himself, scrubs a hand over his face. “I can’t. I’m sorry. There’s this guy. I thought I could move on. But.”

Kevin takes the rejection with good grace. “That’s rough man. Sure things can’t work out for you guys? Is he married or something?”

Raylan shakes his head. Hesitates, because he can’t tell the truth, but the urge to confide in someone takes over. Raylan says. “He’s in the military.”

Only half a lie.

“Aw, shit. Fucking Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” Kevin shakes his head.

Raylan nods. He agrees with the sentiment, even though it doesn’t apply to Tim anymore. “Let me get you another drink.” He stands up and drops a couple twenties on the bar, for his tab, and another beer for Kevin. “I think I’m going to head out. Nice talking to you.”

Goes home. There’s no papering over this crack.

 

 

Tim emerges from the train station in Istanbul, the station where the Orient Express used to start, shoulders his backpack, and walks down to the Bosporus. Leans on a railing.

It was a long damn ride from Sofia, Bulgaria.

Tim loves it here, but this time is kind of spoiled by the undercurrent of stress he can’t shake. Normally, at this point in an assignment, he’d be focused, not worried at all.This job, it’s not the same as going back to war, but it’s not separate.

For all he knows, their client is the U. S. intelligence, or maybe military, and that’s another layer of worry. Tim has no intention of being turned into the CIA’s latest deniable op without his consent.

The back door recruitment efforts dried up, eighteen-twenty months back. The straight up recruitment efforts started before he’d even left the Rangers. CIA and DEA dogged him pretty hard, but it seems like every federal law enforcement and intelligence org in the country wants to recruit from the 75th.

Tim had been tempted, sure, but tempted by a life of being his own boss even more.

One of the few agencies he’d actually considered was the Marshals Service, which seems funny now. Not the funny-haha kind of funny, either.

He tries to shake off the mood.

Without the job to focus on, he’d be sliding down under the surface for sure. Of course, without the job, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Suck it up, Gutterson. He checks into a mid range hotel in the Old City, and goes out to meet Mark.

Next time he comes here is going to be an actual vacation, Tim decides, finding Mark under the trees in the park below Topkapi Palace.

By this time, they have an approach planned, and the only details to be worked out will come from on the ground conditions. To that end, Tim makes a few phone calls, and Mark goes off to get some camping gear, before playing tourist.

“More research maybe couldn’t hurt,” Tim says.

Mark just got his fortune told by a street vendor with a rabbit which pulled a piece of paper out of a hopper. It’s summer hot, but here in the park there’s shade and a breeze and it’s not bad.

Tim’s thinking about a fresh squeezed pomegranate juice - they’re supposed to be tourists, so eating and drinking their way through the city is cover - and idly playing with the camera strap.

“Permission to speak freely?”

Shit, What'd he do? “Go ahead.”

“I don't want to get pulled back in, either, but we took the money.” Mark turns the fortune paper over, folds it in thirds. “You think there’s a legit reason to hang back, I need to hear it.”

“You remember how, every time we got in country, felt like we were playing catch up the first few days?” Tim raises the camera and takes a photo of the archeological museum looming above them. “I just think it’s going to be more complicated than we took into account.”

“Which is why we need to get our feet on the ground and check it out.”

Mark’s right. Not like they’re committed to a course of action ‘til he pulls the trigger on the target.

“Meet you on the bridge at sunset,” Tim says, getting up. “I got to talk to my gun guy.”

“Roger that,” Mark says, and wanders off to flirt with a couple girls a few benches down.

They blend into the backpacker/budget holiday crowds pretty well.

Tim takes his time, takes some pictures, gets a bus over to Istiklal Street. Falls in with a weedy guy in his fifties outside the Virgin Megastore, and they meander along side streets and talk in low tones.

By the time he walks down to the bridge, the sky is starting to color up. Tim loves watching the sunset, another day survived, the promise of the night to come.

Standing among the fishermen jigging their lines off the bridge, clouds standing out against a gold and pink stained sky, Tim relaxes, committed now.

Mark drifts up to his elbow and Tim makes room.

The last time he’d watched the night fall from this bridge, it’d been Nick at his side.

But that’s over, and there’s new days ahead.

 

 

On Monday, Raylan finally agrees to see a therapist Dan found that specializes in refugees, torture victims, soldiers. Agrees to start therapy that day. Agrees to take the week off.

That night, as dusk cools the heated city, Raylan laces on his running shoes, and propels himself out the door. There’s a breeze soothing the heated air of a long summer day.

Raylan gulps soft humid air. He’ll never not be alert to his surroundings - his job, and growing up with Arlo, taught him that - but the steady beat of his feet against pavement, the slight burn of engaged muscles, eases his mind. He tries to take in his surroundings, the massive baobab tree in the little park a mile in, worn paint on the metal chairs, the flickering of tiny lizards on walls, not looking for threats, just being present.

Two miles leave him dripping and sore, the last three blocks made on aching legs. He staggers into the shower when he makes it into his condo, then eats old pizza in his boxers on the couch, in front of a baseball game, without thinking about much of anything. Right now, he feels okay.

He repeats the process - including the cold pizza - the next morning. Goes on running in the early mornings and late evenings.

Keeps his appointments every day. Having a set time to worry at this shit seems to keep the memories at bay, some. And as the week goes on, Raylan notices that talking about the Bucks incident strips it of some of its weight, gives it some distance, like a story he’s told a million times about an incident that happened years ago.

Talking about Tim makes him ache, and feel empty, miss him like a hole somewhere in his ribcage, which is damn stupid. He’d known Tim for less than 24 hours. He doesn’t even know for sure whether Tim was using him as tiger bait for Bucks. But he holds onto those memories hard, anyway. He has to.

Maybe it would be easier if Tim had been using him.

Maybe then, Raylan wouldn’t feel so alone.

 

 

Tim palms the head of his dick, stripped naked on cool white sheets, enjoying the hotel’s hospitality before departing for rougher accommodations. He’s hard, getting harder, nothing to do but kill time until tomorrow morning.

So he summons up Raylan.

Raylan’s tall, got that swagger. An easy manner, a crinkle around the eyes when he smiles. Tight jeans. He’d eaten a dish of ice cream after dinner. Plain vanilla. Likes books, sports.

Guns.

Broad shoulders, long legs, narrow ass.

The man just hangs together beautifully.

Raylan had told him few details, just broad strokes of his life, his interests. But a dinner, a couple short walks to and from, an hour or so spent in bed, gives him the outlines.

He _likes_ Raylan.

When he was younger, he’d practically moved in with guys for less.

And the man knows how to fuck.

Tim comes over his hand, quick. He’s too keyed up to take his time. Wipes off with a towel and subsides into the bed, satisfied.

Tomorrow they’ll set out for Erzerum, then head into the Kaçkar Mountains, traveling as Canadian hikers - that’s what their passports say, anyway. Reliable intel puts the target on the road to some small villages in the mountains, and Google Earth has shown him some promising sniper’s nests. They have five days to scout.

The sniper rifle currently stowed, in pieces, in his backpack will ride east in a special compartment in the car’s undercarriage; the rental had cost, and Tim wouldn’t want to be friends with the people he got it from, but he doesn’t dare take a chance of the firearm being discovered.

Tim turns over, gets comfortable as he can. Curls into himself a little more. No movies in his head tonight.

As he falls asleep, he wonders if Raylan got his postcard yet.

 

  

Raylan heads home from therapy, stops at his mailbox on the ground floor. He hasn’t checked his mail for a few days, and it’s overdue. He’s old enough to get his bills on paper, and pay them with paper checks. There’s a little stack of envelopes, couple catalogs, in the box.

He stops inside his door to weed out the junk. Bill, bill, advertisement, one of those cheapjack law enforcement equipment catalogs.

Kicks the door shut behind him, riffles through the last couple pieces. The bottom of the stack feels different, and he pulls out something unexpected.

A postcard. The hotel in Managua. The chicken scratch on the back reads: _You’re welcome_.

Raylan’s hand shakes, Tim’s message staring at him, and the postcard drops out of his fingers.

Tim had taken the trouble to get this postcard to him from - Raylan gropes for the thing,off the floor, checks the postmark - from Akron, OH.

There’s no way Tim actually went to Ohio to send it himself, but he touched it, he wrote it.

He picked it off the rack in the first place.

His knees wobble, and he has to brace himself on the wall. His throat feels tight, and he has to gulp for air. Slides down the wall and lands on his ass. Tries the therapist’s deep breathing exercises, beats back the shakes

Tim remembers him.

_You’re welcome._

He finds his sea legs, climbs to his feet, and takes the postcard into the bedroom. There he unearths the battered old hardback of _To Kill A Mockingbird_ he’d been trying to reread, and tucks the postcard inside the front cover.

Raylan goes into the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face. Counts his breathing, up to thirty.

Forms a plan while staring at his stubbled, thinning face in the mirror.

Raylan Givens has been a deputy U.S. marshal for 19 years experience. Finding people is _what he does_.

He has to find Tim, and to do that, he has to get his shit together.

First things first.

The condo is a shitheap. Take out wrappers and containers overflow from the kitchen trash can onto the floor, empty beer bottles line up in ranks on the counter, cheek by jowl with bone dry bourbon bottles.

A week’s worth of clothing is scattered through the bedroom and living room, falling wherever he dragged it off. His old running clothes make the bathroom smell like a locker room.

 _Miami Heralds_ litter the coffee table. All the books he’s tried to read, and failed, have fallen from their careless, abandoned stacks on top of the bookshelves.

Even his snake plant is dying.

Raylan goes into action, feeling the first lick of energy he’s had in weeks.

He ties up the trash and puts it outside the front door to take down to the dumpster. Sweeps the empty bottles into another trash bag and lugs it out to the big recycling bin out back.

Scrubs the counter, washes the dishes.

Dumps his running stuff in the washer and then plucks the rest of his dirty clothing, piece by piece, from the floor and the couch and the kitchen table, until all of it lands in the hamper.

The piles of books almost defeat him. Shoving them into another stack won’t feel cleaned up, but picking each one up and finding its proper place on the shelf seems impossible.

He compromises on rescuing the ones that have landed badly, splayed out on the floor, or in the big yucca plant by the bookshelves, right in the dry dirt. He closes them, brushes clean the covers and spines, goes so far as to slot them in alphabetically, and by subject, where they go.

When Raylan finishes with those, he reaches slowly for the ones on the floor. A half done task will nag at him just as much as an unstarted task.

By the time the apartment is cleared up, Raylan is exhausted.

He will get his shit together if it kills him.

 

 

The op goes off perfect.

Tim tightens his trigger finger on the tail end of an exhale, and the target’s head explodes all over the car window.

Like a pulped watermelon, a fellow sniper had said, once, but Tim knows it’s blood and bone and gray matter.

Mark rolls to the side, and he and Tim scramble sideways, down a gully cut into the mountainside by rainwater, putting distance between themselves and the origin of the killshot. Tim doubts that anyone could get up there in less than an hour, or two, even if they could pinpoint the the right spot, but he’s not about to wait around to be found.

The cars have swerved off the road, the target’s guards boiling out of the three different vehicles, assuming defensive positions.

But Tim and Mark are gone.

About three hours of scrambling and sometimes hiking, Mark and Tim reach the vicinity of a hiker’s trail.

Mark motions him down, glances at the trail visible a quarter mile away. Tim blinks, slow, and Mark takes his agreement and creeps down to check out the rock outcrop where they stashed their packs.

Tim settles back and makes himself part of the landscape. If it’s safe, they’ll strip down to regular hiking gear, stow their camouflage, break down the rifle, and continue on their way, innocent tourists.

Mark gives him the _come ahead_ signal. Tim creeps down the slope as fast as he can without hurting himself. A busted ankle would be a problem. Maybe five minutes later, the camo is stored, rifle stashed, and Tim is scrubbing the last of the blacking off his face with wet wipes.

He falls in as Mark takes the lead with his superior - only slightly superior, damn it - wayfinding skills, on high alert.

Man, Tim’s looking forward to taking some time off.

 

 

When Monday rolls around, Dan lets Raylan come back to work, but not on the street. He’ll get caught up in his paperwork, make follow up calls, assess some cold cases. Dan does not give his gun back. Raylan doesn’t ask for it.

He still has his appointment every day, gets his runs in.

And he has the Find Tim project. He starts coming into the office after the working day, after he’s gotten in a good run and eaten some real food.

Raylan turns Tim’s postcard - now in a glassine bag - over in his hands, trying to glean something, anything extra, from the pasteboard. But there’s just Tim’s scrawl of two words, Raylan’s address.

Blocky printing on the address, so either he’d been trying to conceal his handwriting, or he’d been trying to make it clear. But concealment doesn’t make sense, he’d written the message in a cramped cursive scrawl, not printed it. So the printing with the address is probably for clarity.

Fingerprints are out of the question. First off, the postcard’s been through a lot of hands, so he doesn’t expect to find many usable prints.

Second, most important, Raylan does not want Tim’s prints to ping the system. Someone, somewhere, might be looking for him, and Raylan’s not going to lead anyone even one step closer.

So he has to take a roundabout route. Deputy Marshals are trained for this.

Five minutes, to get a snack, then he’ll try a new tack.

Raylan shuts the door of the small conference room behind him and heads for the stairs. The office has an evening hush about it, just a few deputies still working. Before Nicaragua, before - before, Raylan had preferred the daytime bustle.

But now he’s got a project, and a tendency to reach for his gun when people walk up behind him, and the night suits him just fine.

The snack machines are six floors down, in the basement. Raylan hits the elevator call button, watches the lighted floor numbers blink smoothly up from the first level, and almost steps inside when the doors slide open.

He can’t. He. He'll take the stairs.

Raylan comes back upstairs with a Twix bar and peppermint gum.

The gum is for his drive home, and his inevitable beeline for the bourbon once he gets there: peppermint and bourbon are horrible together. He’d tried just brushing his teeth right away, but somehow always managed to detour by the liquor cabinet first. So, peppermint gum, and the bourbon remains unmolested.

He understands from the Internet that this is called a life hack.

When he gets into the office, Raylan goes by the coffee station, drops a buck in the box, and puts a green tea pod in the Keurig. Too late for coffee, and he hates decaf, just on principle. Coffee’s supposed to wake you up. Tea is a compromise.

Raylan fixes his tea, one sugar, and goes back to the conference room.

The stacks of files and his laptop are still waiting for him when he returns with his candy bars. This project is by way of not being official, except Dan saying, whatever you need, when Raylan had started requesting the Gio files, the surveillance recordings, and bad business deals. He was looking for any hint of an enemy gunning for Gio, or his organization and therefore Bucks. Then he could trace back on Gio’s enemy, look for any known associates, freelancers.

Longshot. Very, very long.

If he’s going to find Tim, he’s got to be obsessive. Raylan has no problem with this.

Find Tim? identify him first.

Last name: unknown. Branch of service: unknown. Hometown: unknown.

Tim’s forearm tattoo might be the symbol of the Marine sniper school; the image as Raylan remembers it is pretty close to the sniper school emblem he found once he started researching military sharpshooters. Turns out the Marine sniper school trains soldiers from all branches of the U.S. military, though. Not much help.

Getting the sniper school records and combing through them for anyone named ‘Tim’ is far down on his list of task, since he figures, without more info, maybe a warrant, the Marines won’t just hand those records over. He expects that those files probably include military ID pics, which almost makes him pick up the phone, but good sense stops him. Better not to waste his shot.

First name only and it might not be real; if real, very common.

Employer: big fucking question mark.

Tim could be anything from CIA to private contractor, NSA to hired goon for Gio’s enemies.

Raylan would really rather not ask the FBI for their files on known assassins and hitmen. Dan has the pull, and Raylan knows a few agents himself, so they could get the files, but Raylan, revolts at that thought. He’s not going to put Tim on their radar.

Same reason he hasn’t tried to get some kind of international warrant, or even request for cooperation, to get the Managua hotel’s security video and registration and payment records for Tim.

That’s like sending up a flare.

Worst fucking dilemma: protect Tim, and never see him again, or expose him, put him in danger - and maybe find him.

Maybe a missed connections thing in a Managuan newspaper? But he doubts Tim will be looking there.

Hell, Raylan’s about desperate enough to try Craigslist.

 

 

Istanbul to Mumbai to Hong Kong. Tim pokes through the books in an airport shop in Hong Kong, settles on a fat mystery, but abandons it in favor of _Fellowship of the Rings_ half an hour later.

Now that he’s got some time off, he wants to drum his fingers, and twitch in his seat, and get up and walk around. Fidgeting is not in his nature, but the tension he’s carried for weeks just won’t crest.

He needs some serious downtime.

So Tim’s going to take a few months. Remember what it’s like to stay in one place for whole weeks at a time.

Mark, though he doesn’t pull the trigger as much as Tim, not much at all anymore, except on the range, gets twitchy too.

This’ll be good for both of them.

Tim shifts in his seat again. Why he’s trying to convince himself of a decision they’ve already made he doesn’t know.

When the boarding call comes for his flight to L.A., Tim grabs up his backpack, ready to go. When they’re in the air, he drinks two bourbons in a row, and falls into a restless sleep.

L.A. is L.A. Never been his favorite place, not since his old man had upped stakes in Texas and dragged him out here as a teenager, but it’ll do as a home base. They’ve got lots of legitimate clients here, and Tim sometimes needs to make the rounds.

He rents a car at the airport, goes home to his boring shoebox apartment.

Tim sleeps off and on for a day and a half. Aside from his books, a few framed photos, it could be any anonymous place, for any anonymous human. He should just put everything in storage and stay in hotels. More expensive, but Tim doesn’t know what to do with the money he has, even after his money launderer takes a cut.

He heads out for food, when he finally wakes up enough to bother putting on pants.

Turns back after a block to retrieve his real ID, credit cards, and so on. Sometimes he has a hard time remembering he’s legit here.

Tim scrolls through his phone at the restaurant, stuffing his face with a fat American cheeseburger with the other hand. He could call some friends, but what he really wants is on the other side of the country.

Not a good idea. He might not be welcomed. Might have a boyfriend.

Nothing’s going to talk him out of this.

Before he leaves the restaurant, he’s got a flight booked to Miami International.

Tim needs to see his money guy anyway.

 

 

Five weeks after Nicaragua, Raylan opens his door to a knock he doesn’t know. Gets a surprise.

Tim.

Standing there, on his doorstep.

His hair is sun kissed, streaked with little hints of gold here and there, like he’s spent a lot of time outdoors recently. He’s maybe lost a few pounds. There’s a fading, thin scar, above his eyebrow that he didn’t have when Raylan met him.

“That guy, the other guy from the banana plantation, he’s okay,” Tim says. “Thought you’d want to know.”

“Yeah,” Raylan says. “I was wondering.”

 

Raylan’s thinner, he looks tired. His smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, and Tim feels like his heart is about to pound out of his chest.

  

Raylan gets hold of his shirt, and -

\- Tim lets himself be reeled in.

**Author's Note:**

> Things are a bit stressful here (again - this year has been craptastic), but I'm glad to finally get this installment finished. I hope you all enjoyed it - please let me know. I love to hear what you guys have to say.


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